Beautiful Ruin
by Seraph101
Summary: This is my testament to the beauty of this world...Each day could be my end, so each day is beautiful.


This is actually a response to an essay prompt my friend had. They said write about something real world and I said no, damn it, I'm going to write about the wasteland! Anyways, enjoy!

And no, I do not own Fallout. : \ If only.

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I breathe the acrid air in deeply; the radiation burns my throat in an almost pleasant way. This wasteland is Hell, Heaven, Purgatory, and the most beautifully terrifying thing I have ever set my eyes on.

I've seen pictures of the pre-war scenery in books, the soft rolling hills of green, the blooming flowers, the clear water…

It's too perfect. The wasteland is so faulted that it's barely inhabitable, but I love it all the same. The hills are broken, filled with steel and glass and concrete, void of any greenery, just burned carcasses of shrubs. The acid rain killed the flora long ago, and made the soil so irradiated nothing will grow for years. The dirt floats on the wind, sticks to the sweat on my skin and coats me in its warmth. Water is undrinkable and sludge like. The lakes and oceans are filled with monstrosities, but I still stick my bare feet in the murky shallows and feel the familiar prickle of radiation erupting through my body.

The cities are dead. The shining skyscrapers which once stood as beacons of civilization are completely stripped to the steel supports. Skeletons stand in place of buildings. The light shifts through the rubble, illuminating the last shreds of hope that humanity has.

I love this wasteland. It is dotted with broken roads, pockmarked with bomb sites, cracked from the sheer weight of the war. This place embodies everything I love about living. Every day the fragile line between life and death is walked on the vast plains, every day a decision that will shape humanity is made in the cities, underground, out in the smallest settlement.

Even the creatures that roam this land add to its intrigue. Humans exposed to the glowing radiation of the wasteland turn into ghouls, some go completely feral. They turn into creatures of instinct, eating, sleeping, and killing. Super Mutants are only slightly more intelligent, their designs much darker than pure instinct. The people grotesquely transformed into burly green Meta humans capture wastelander's; whether to imprison them or eat them is never known. Giant insects, feral dogs, and creatures that no longer resemble what they are derived from walk the wasteland, fighting for their place in the food chain.

The most beautiful and also the most terrifying part of this wasteland is not the dangerous environment, it isn't the disgusting creatures, isn't the lingering radiation.

It's the people that inhabit it.

Slavers, raiders, wastelander's, politicians, doctors, parents, children…Everyone has a place that isn't quite as defined as it was pre war. The children fight right alongside their parents against slavers and raiders; the politicians and the wastelander's can't come to terms with the differences they have; the doctors not only have to fight sickness and wounds, but also radiation and addiction.

And yet, humanity keeps pushing. We build, we tear down, we make lives and break lives. We deal in blood and hate, band aids and love. We are tolerant and ignorant, arrogant and humble. We fight with words and we fight with bullets, each method is equally effective and equally devastating.

We survive and adapt. We have to. This wasteland could have claimed the human race, could have ended us right after the Great War. We pushed through though.

I love this wasteland, love it so much my heart aches when I look over the broken horizon, my eyes tracing the outlines with an intimacy that rivals love.

This is my testament to the beauty of this world. I hate it and I love it and I want to die but I yearn to live. I want to see what the wastes can task me with next. Each day could be my end, so each day is beautiful.

I could die peacefully in my sleep in a haze of Jet and Med-X, or I could be torn apart by death claws. Either way, I'll die with this land embroidered in the very fibers of my soul.

This place isn't easy to live in, but it is my home, and I will carve my place in it.


End file.
